> Wouldn't the trademark owner want the domain so they could keep it unassigned?
Consider a low-quality domain name like "buy-acme-widgets-cheap-123.com" (for the trademark "Acme"). There are so many possible domain names of that form that Acme Co. would have no real interest in trying to protect that specific one from being misused in the future.
Another messy situation would be if the domain name contained multiple trademarks belonging to different owners. The holder of one trademark would probably be reluctant to take ownership of a domain name which also infringed on another company's trademark!
Consider a low-quality domain name like "buy-acme-widgets-cheap-123.com" (for the trademark "Acme"). There are so many possible domain names of that form that Acme Co. would have no real interest in trying to protect that specific one from being misused in the future.
Another messy situation would be if the domain name contained multiple trademarks belonging to different owners. The holder of one trademark would probably be reluctant to take ownership of a domain name which also infringed on another company's trademark!